An empty room, a crowded heart
by indiaga
Summary: Set vaguely at the beginning of Season 6, where Ziva goes to visit Tony on le boat - bearing in mind I haven't actually seen this series, I might be a little hazy! Just some pointless Tiva drabble because I love it, and I need it. Please review :
1. Chapter 1

There was a moment, on board that ship, that grey and hating ship, when she wanted to say something, and she didn't.

They were a world apart, and Ziva was never any good at building bridges, and she never has the words she needs. _I miss you. I like you. I think I might love you._

_I want you to come home with me. I can't leave you on this ship. I can't fly away from you._

And so she says "You could have called" and by the time she realises what she's done, it's too late.

In a way, it always has been.

***

When she catches sight of those photos, she feigns outrage. She sees the smirk and half-fear in his eyes, and tells herself _oh, he's the same old Tony_. But he isn't, and she can tell.

When she catches sight of those photos, _those_ photos, she feigns outrage, but what she really feels is disappointment.

She wanted him to keep them under his pillow and in his pocket, and next to his skin, and to take them out when it was quiet and trace her smile with a gentle thumb. The one blurry shot she has of him has been worn away by the furtive caresses of a fingertip.

Sometimes, she tries to remember his face and she can't. And it kills her.

She does not want him to hang them up, display them, because instantly they become the property of every man on that ship, every prying eye and love starved hand, and all she really wants is to be his, only his.

***

He runs through that dusty grey floating box shouting like a triumphant child and she hopes _so_ hard that it will be the same.

But she doesn't want the same. The frightened, desperate jagged feeling that flies between them like a bird caught in a cage. The angry snarl of his wanting eyes and the utter lack of words on her pretty lips. The things they did not do, and the things they did wrong.

No. She does not want it to be the same. She wants to be able to kiss him with soft and honest lips. She wants to wake up next to him and find him watching her with smiling sleepy eyes, and she wants to wear his shirt and make breakfast and curl, like a cat, in his lap on a slow Sunday afternoon.

She does not want bombs and guns and death and dust.

She wants to put away her work in a little box and lock it tight, shut, and take his hand and let him lead her to bed.

She wants for there to be more to her than simply what she does.

What she can do.

***

_Killing's all your good for_, the voice whispers – silky, so silky – in her ear, every night, and she can't escape it, because it is the truth. _You'll never be a wife or a mother, or a pillar of the community. You'll never bake or paint or live a carefree life._

You can shoot with deadly aim.

***

They gather, warm and soft, in the light of the bullpen, and Abby is a child, and Gibbs is a father, and McGee is much more of a man than he remembers. And Ziva is so silent, and half smiling, and watchful, and guarded, and caged.

He does not hear her footsteps when she moves, and only wants to hear her breathing in his ear.

He sighs.

It is good to be home.

***

She stands in front of a mirror and wonders how it ever got to this, and then she feels his fingers on her skin and remembers what it was like to taste his lips and pretend to be pretending.

She is so caught up in something, and she doesn't quite know what it is.

He wants to kiss her, and doesn't know where to start.

They are lonely souls.

**I just needed to write some mindless, plotless Tiva drabble. Hopefully you'll all enjoy it, should get started on a major thang soon but I'm so tiredddd. 4 more days of school, yippee!**


	2. THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER

**Hey guyssssss-**

**Before anyone gets excited, this isn't a further chapter or update or sequel or anything. I am posting this on all my current stuff just to let everyone whose on author alert or story alert or anything know that I'm not going to be updating for at least 2 weeks, possibly 3. This is not because I don't love you – I really, REALLY do :) – but because, in the immortal words of Cliff Richard, 'We're all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or two...'**

**I'm as annoyed as anybody about it, but I just wanted to let you all know that I am not not NOT abandoning , or NCIS, or anyone, just that my father would really like to make me struggle across some moors in the south-west of England for two weeks (think Lorna Doone x the Hound of the Baskervilles and you've got it exactly). **

**Anyway. Yes. I'm sorry if anyone got their hopes up for a new chapter or something, particularly for A Quiet Defiance, but don't worry, I have over three weeks in August in which to ignore all my homework and friends and family and spend hours updating :) Yayyyyy, if I do say so myself.**

**Indy**


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